Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2001/07/25

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Subject: Re: [Leica] Bokeh.. bah!
From: "Mxsmanic" <mxsmanic@hotmail.com>
Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2001 12:03:45 +0200
References: <Pine.LNX.4.21.0107241629380.27666-100000@bokeh.pdi.com> <006e01c114b3$7cd63880$56234d18@gv.shawcable.net>

Ted Grant writes:

> And you know what? I looked at hundreds of
> prints and slides from over the years and not
> one of them would've been improved from some
> "silly effect" called bokeh!

That makes perfect sense.  After all, in any normal picture, the part that a
person is supposed to notice is the part that is _in focus_.  Nobody is going to
look at or care about the out-of-focus areas, and that's exactly as things
should be.  Out of focus says "ignore me," and that's what normal people do ...
with the exception of a minority of photographers, who apparently pour over the
blurry areas trying to guess how many blades the lens has around its aperture,
or something.

I'd summarize what kind of bokeh I see in my photos, except that I never look at
the blurry parts of the photos, so I don't really remember.

> Even then, not likely will 99% of the viewers,
> photographers and non even notice, nor pay any
> attention to the out of focus background.

Yup.  People look at the interesting, focused part of the image, so if you get
that right, the rest can be anything at all.

In reply to: Message from "Juan J. Buhler" <jbuhler@pdi.com> (Re: [Leica] Bokeh.. bah!)
Message from "Ted Grant" <tedgrant@home.com> (Re: [Leica] Bokeh.. bah!)